When Laura Snarked Condi

And you thought Barbara Boxer was anti-single ?

"Dr. Rice, who I think would be a really good candidate [for President], is not interested. Probably because she is single, her parents are no longer living, she's an only child. You need a very supportive family and supportive friends to have this job."

Yikes. Single women can't be president! Move over, Barbara. ... P.S.: Does Laura Bush's intra-party sneer get Sen. Barbara Boxer off the hook? Or--by suggesting some powerful subconscious urge of married mothers to condescend to single women--does it make it even clearer that Boxer is guilty? Bush's comment certainly doesn't make the Boxer incident seem like a better episode for feminism. ... 1:04 A.M.

Against the War, For the Surge: I was throwing out some newspapers and came across something I'd forgotten: Michael Gordon's November 15 NYT piece describing how General Anthony Zinni, a trenchant and consistent critic of the decision to go to war in Iraq and of the prosecution of the war, supports something that looks an awful lot like President Bush's surge:

Anthony Zinni, who used to head the U.S. Central Command and was among the retired generals who called for the resignation of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, argued that the reduction of American forces was more likely to accelerate the slide to civil war than avert it.

''The logic of this is you put pressure on Maliki and force him to stand up to this,'' Zinni said in an interview, referring to Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, the Iraqi prime minister. ''Well, you can't put pressure on a wounded guy.'

'There is a premise that the Iraqis are not doing enough now, that there is a capability that they have not employed or used.

''I am not so sure they are capable of stopping sectarian violence."

Instead of taking troops out, Zinni said, it would make more sense to consider deploying additional American forces over the next six months to ''regain momentum'' as part of a broader effort to create more jobs, foster political reconciliation and develop more effective Iraqi security forces.

Advertisement

Logic says we should be able to separate support for the war from support for or opposition to the surge, as H. Kurtz has noted. But politics seems to often dictate surge-bashing as a sort of emotional and political make-up call for failure to oppose the decision to go to war in the first place. (Just watch Hillary!) I find Michael O'Hanlon persuasive on the surge issue:

Critics rightly argue that it may well be too little, way too late. But for a skeptical Congress and nation, it is still the right thing to try -- as long as we do not count on it succeeding and we start working on backup plans even as we grant Bush his request.

P.S.: I wonder how much of the blame for the "too late" part will turn out to fall on Karl Rove. It seems highly likely that Bush knew many months ago that a new Iraq plan was needed, but delayed for fear of disrupting his overconfident Republican strategist's flat-footed midterm election strategy--even though, it seems clear now, declaring this new initiative seven months ago might have saved the Republicans in the election. ... 10:43 P.M. link

It's the Hassle:Washington Monthly's Charles Peters mocks the "new proletariat" of Americans in the "$100,000-$500,000 income range," especially their agitation against the Alternative Minimum Tax. ... My impression is the main complaint against the AMT is not the extra tax it extracts but the extra paperwork hassle it imposes on those who essentially have to calculate their tax two times, using different sets of rules (or, almost as annoying, pay an accountant to do it for them) ... I would think the anti-bureaucratic Wash. Monthly would join in the fraternal struggle against unnecessary government-imposed complications--realizing that Washington could probably collect a lot more tax money, indeed more money from the complaining top 20%, and if only it did so with less hassle. ... Similarly, I think the hassle factor--the hassle of figuring out which insurance company is going to screw you in what way, of reading the fine print and artfully filling out forms and switching plans and negotiating with gatekeepers and getting pre-op approval and worrying about treatments that won't be covered--is why even the well-insured 'new proleteriat' will ultimately care about universal health coverage (contrary to what Peters suggests in his last item). ...

Update: Ann Althouse, who uses Turbo Tax, says it's the money, not the hassle. ... Instapundit wonders "if Turbo Tax isn't a friend of Big Government." [link omitted] ... I wonder a) if the AMT effectively eliminates the tax benefits of the home mortgage deduction and b) more and more affluent Americans are going to be subject to the unindexed AMT, then c) the resulting decline in utility of the tax deduction will produce a corresponding fall in the price of high-income homes. ...

P.S.: My anti-hassle argument is simply that we shouldn't have to do two tax calculations. I'm not saying there's not a good argument that, of the two, we should keep the AMT and ditch the deduction-riddled regular tax code. That may be where we are headed already--as more Americans are obviously going to have to pay the AMT, they eventually may not bother with the regular tax code calculation at all, no? Result: Back-door slow-motion tax reform. ... 10:26 P.M.

Hagel's Hyperbole: Like most people--including, perhaps, most supporters of the "surge"--I don't expect it to work. But (assuming we don't initiate a new war with Iran or Syria) I don't quite understand why, if it fails, the U.S. will be in all that much worse a strategic position than it is now in Iraq. This doesn't seem like a doubling down. It seems more like raising the bet 15%. So when Sen. Chuck Hagel calls Bush's latest plan

"the most dangerous foreign policy blunder in this country since Vietnam, if it's carried out"

Advertisement

that seems a bit odd. If the surge fails, surely the 'most dangerous foreign policy blunder' will be not the surge but the initial invasion of Iraq. Hagel voted for that, remember. ... Perhaps not just publicity-seeking political ambition but guilt is at work behind Hagel's hyperbole. ... P.S.:On Charlie Rose, Hagel equivocates, Kerry/2004 style, not quite being able to bring himself to say he was wrong on the Iraq war vote. He also defends his hyperbole, citing both the strains of increased troop deployment and the possibility of conflict with Iran and Syria. But note that Hagel's own plan, as he outlines it, would involve putting our troops on Iraq's borders with Iran and Syria, which might not exactly reduce the possibility of conflict ... 8:08 P.M.

The shift lever falls readily to hand for one R. Kuttner, who road tests the Pontiac G6. He doesn't like the door-lock releases. Or the steering. Kuttner concludes the problem wiith GM isn't its workers--or unions--it's GM's incompetent designers and executives:

You might blame GM's woes on poor American workmanship or the cost of American labor. But Japanese total labor costs are comparable, even with Detroit's higher health insurance costs. Increasingly, Japanese cars are being assembled in the USA, and the quality holds up just fine.

So what's wrong with GM? The cars. GM is famous for being run by bean counters and ad men. Toyota is run by engineers.'

Advertisement

This is a common viewpoint, I've found, among my Democratic friends--Jon Alter, this means you!--who would never actually buy a Detroit product but who want to believe the UAW can't be blamed. The argument seems to be roughtly this: a) American cars are now reliable enough, having closed the gap with the Japanese brands, so b) the workers are doing their job; therefore c) if Detroit cars like the G6 are still obviously inferior--tacky and cheap, with mediocre handling--it must be because they're designed badly by white collar professionals, not because they're built badly by blue collar union members.

The trouble with this comforting liberal argument is labor costs. When Kuttner says "Japanese total labor costs are comparable, even with Detroit's higher health insurance costs," he is--as is so often the case--talking through his hat. Look at this chart. GM pays $31.35 an hour. Toyota pays $27 an hour. Not such a big difference. But--thanks in part to union work rules that prevent the thousands of little changes that boost productivity--it takes GM, on average, 34.3 hours to build a car, while it takes Toyota only 27.9 hours. ** Multiply those two numbers together and it comes out that GM spends 43% more on labor per car. And that's before health care costs (where GM has a $1,300/vehicle disadvantage).

If you're GM or Ford, how do you make up for a 43% disadvantage? Well, you concentrate on vehicle types where you don't have competition from Toyota--e.g. big SUVs in the 1980s and 1990s. Or you build cars that strike an iconic, patriotic chord--like pickup trucks, or the Mustang and Camaro. Or--and this is the most common technique--you skimp on the quality and expense of materials. Indeed, you have special teams that go over a design to "sweat" out the cost. Unfortunately, these cost-cutting measures (needed to make up for the UAW disadvantage) are all too apparent to buyers. Cost-cutting can even affect handling--does GM spend the extra money for this or that steel support to stabilize the steering, etc. As Robert Cumberford of Automobile magazine has noted, Detroit designers design great cars--but those aren't what gets built, after the cost-cutters are through with them.

Look at the big Ford Five Hundred--a beautiful car on the outside, based on the equally attractive Volvo S80. But thanks to Ford's cost-cutters it debuted with a tinny, depressing interior that would lose a comparison with a subcompact Toyota Scion. Ford wants $30,000 for the Five Hundred. Forget it!

Advertisement

Is it really an accident that all the UAW-organized auto companies are in deep trouble while all the non-union Japanese "transplants" building cars in America are doing fine? Detroit's designs are inferior for a reason, even when they're well built. And that reason probably as more to do with the impediments to productivity imposed by the UAW--or, rather, by legalistic, Wagner-Act unionism--than with slick and unhip Detroit corporate "culture."

P.S.: If Detroit can only be competititive when the UAW makes grudging concessions, isn't it likely the UAW will only concede enough to make GM and Ford survive, but never enough to let them actually beat the Japanese manufactures? I try to make this point here.

**--Non-union Toyota's productivity, in terms of hours per car, has actually been growing faster than GM's, according to the Harbour report cited by NPR. So--thanks in part to Toyota's lack of work-rule bottlenecks?--GM is not catching up. It's falling further behind. 1:57 P.M. link

Who's Surge Is It, Anyway? In this videofrom AEI, Frederick Kagan and Gen. Jack Keane, originators of the "surge" strategy, make it as clear as can be that they do not intend for surging U.S. or Iraqi troops to go after on Moqtada al-Sadr's Shiite Mahdi Army or to attempt to enter and clear out the vast Shiite neighborhood of Sadr City.** Yet in his speech tonight, President Bush said (without mentioning Sadr's name) that Iraqi prime minister al-Maliki had given U.S. forces the "green light" to do just that--and news accounts played up the anti-Sadr angle. ... Either Bush's surge is some other kind of surge from the Kagan/Keane surge, or there's some Kabuki goin' on (e.g., al-Maliki doesn't really mean it, and perhaps the Bush administration knows al-Maliki doesn't really mean it, but wants a) Iraqi Sunnis, b) Americans, c) Sadr or d) himself to think he means it). ...

I would suggest that PM Nuri al-Maliki's warning to the Mahdi Militia to disarm or face the US military is in fact code. He is telling the Sadrists to lie low while the US mops up the Sunni Arab guerrillas. Sadr's militia became relatively quiescent for a whole year after the Marines defeated it at Najaf in August, 2004. But since it is rooted in an enormous social movement, the militia is fairly easy to reconstitute after it goes into hiding.

But if this is the case, is that a problem for the U.S. strategy, or the key to its implementation--i.e., if "lie low" means the Mahdi Army stops sectarian killings without the U.S. having to attack it?

**--Kagan and Keane want the troops to patrol "Sunni and mixed Sunni-Shiite neighborhoods," in part to convince Shiites they don't need Sadr's militias, which is different from taking them on. Attacking Sadr in Sadr City, Kagan says, would be a "very bloody opertation" that would "look something like Fallujah." (See video at 9:58.) While we would "win," he argues that it would have the political effect of "driving all of the Shia parties together to oppose us." 11:27 P.M. link

"It's Over:" Kate Hudson's people must be paying US Weekly to feature her breakup on the cover. I contend nobody actually cares about Kate Hudson's romantic life. Do you? She's no Ron Burkle! ... 5:21 P.M.

Looking in a crowd for friends: Supporters of welfare reform have seen caseloads drop dramatically and a employment rise, but we're still looking for unmistakable signs of a dramatic improvement in the culture of ghetto poverty, especially for black men. Jill Leovy's Salon piece on the murder rates for black men seems to offer a potentially significant bit of evidence:

The reality is that blacks in 1976 were almost twice as likely to die from homicide as blacks in 2004, and the disparity between black and white rates was 20 percent higher than today.

What's more, Leovy notes, "[s]ignificant progress has happened very recently. Over the last dozen years or so, the nation has seen a startling crime drops ... and black rates have dropped especially steeply." Hmm. What happened a "dozen years or so" ago? I can't remember. ... Leovy doesn't discuss the possible welfare-reform explanation,** though maybe she should. ...

**--In fact, she credits the continuing breakup of the black family with a decline in the murder of men by "battered wives, trapped and desperate," although she notes that this can't account for the whole drop. ... 4:58 P.M.

Give me 15 more inches of BarryAchenbachStein: Ezra Dyer's auto-show blogging comes in on the good end of Hearty Hack. ... 2:12 P.M.

Catching Up With ... NCLB! The estimable Eduwonk notes that today's NYT coverageof the debate over the No Child Left Behind Act sees the story through the hack pre-neoliberal prism: "more money, less money, Republicans against Democrats." In fact, Eduwonk notes,

the NCLB tension evidenced in this story is less Republican and Democrat than differences between the Democratic committee chairs on the House and Senate education committees and their leadership. The money issue can be resolved in the context of a deal, the bigger problem is that while Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid thinks NCLB is punitive, George Miller and Ted Kennedy don't. [E.A.]

Does Sen. Kennedy mind that the Times cluelessly ignores his non-hack, non-anti-Bush role? Probably not, since the perception that he's in there fighting Bush for more money is what gives him the street cred** to play his non-hack role of warding off the education bureaucracies, including unions, that want to to water down the law's standards. ...

P.P.S.: As a non-eduwonk, I would think if the NCLB were working we'd see the results by now in positive test scores--and if it isn't working, we should abandon the perestroika-like attempt to whip the education bureaucracy into shape with testing and "sanctions"--and move on to the dissolution of that bureaucracy through a proliferation of charter schools. But Eduwonk says, via email, that it's too soon to tell whether the NCLB will improve test scores, since the " law was passed in January of '02, states only had the testing really implemented last year and this year ..." ... .

More: For some broader Eduwonk takes--but still not the one-stop what-to-think-about-NCLB piece concerned citizens demand--see here and here. ... Also note this comment on the power of the anti-NCLB teachers' unions to reshape (i.e. gut) the law:

A Democratic majority doesn't hurt them but doesn't help them all that much either because there are bad feelings on both sides of the aisles about how the unions, especially the NEA, have approached the law since its passage. ...[snip] ... But if things start to look scary for Dems in 2008, the unions stock goes up.

**--that would be the "liberal street," otherwise known as Iowa. 1:29 P.M. link

NPR seems to have a new feature: "Pointless Stories from the Civil Rights Era." Apparently they've run out of the good ones. Enjoy! 2:39 P.M.

Stupidest sentence in the LAT's big Gates Foundation takedown: After noting that Gates invests in oil companies in the Niger Delta, the Times team declares--

Indeed, local leaders blame oil development for fostering some of the very afflictions that the foundation combats.

Oil workers, for example, and soldiers protecting them are a magnet for prostitution, contributing to a surge in HIV and teenage pregnancy, both targets in the Gates Foundation's efforts to ease the ills of society, especially among the poor. [E.A.]

Presumably it helps Nigeria's economy to have an oil industry, and it helps Nigeria's workers to have jobs in that industry. If the oil workers (or soldiers) then see prostitutes, what exactly are the oil companies the Gates Foundation invests in supposed to do to stop it that they are not doing, short of pulling out of Nigeria? ... Maybe there is something, but the Times doesn't say, leaving the impression it's ready to blame Gates for ills that are an indirect byproduct of the sort of ordinary economic development most people would regard as legitimate and beneficial. ... [Many conflicts here: Gates' Microsoft used to own Slate. Former Slate editor Mike Kinsley, a friend, is married to a Gates Foundation official, etc. Still! ] 12:12 A.M.

Great Moments in Public Employee Unionism: Two L.A. traffic engineers have been charged with "sabotaging intersection signal lights" on "the eve of a two-day job action by members of the Engineers and Architects Assn., which represents 7,500 city workers," according to the LAT. The Times says the two allegedly rigged computers to disrupt** signal lights at "four busy intersections."

Union officials were unavailable for comment Friday. Robert Aquino, executive director of the Engineers and Architects Assn., did not return repeated calls. But in an Aug. 21 interview with The Times about the pending two-day strike, Aquino noted: "Los Angeles is not going to be a fun place to drive." [E.A.]

P.S.: There is some logic to paying private sector employees according to how much disruption they can cause during a strike (which is roughly what U.S.-style collective bargaining does). There's a lot less logic to paying government employees according to how much disruption they can cause--that disruption is often immense, even when strikers don't resort to extralegal means. ... [via L.A. Observed]

They didn't shut the lights off, city transportation sources said. Rather, the engineers allegedly programmed them so that red lights would be extremely long on the most congested approaches to the intersections, causing gridlock for several days ... [E.A.]

9:57 P.M.

Nancy is to Hillary as Arnold is to ______: Just as Hillary Clinton should maybe be worried that a poor performance by Speaker Pelosi will sour voters on women leaders,** should "maverick" Republican presidential candidates like John McCain and Rudy Giuliani worry that Arnold Schwarzenegger's example will sour GOP primary voters on maverick Republicans? ... In Pelosi's case, the worry (for Hillary) would be that she would flop. In Schwarzenegger's case, the worry (for McCain and Giuliani) would be that he'd be successful at implementing non-conservative reforms like his plan to provide guaranteed health care to all children in California including immigrant children in the country illegally. The message, for those conservatives who might be tempted to overlook McCain's semi-Democratic domestic ideas (like his pro-legalization immigration plan and campaign-finance schemes) for the sake of his muscular foreign policy, would be that a maverick Republican is much more likely to get those semi-Democratic ideas enacted than an actual Democrat. ... To Be Sure: This alarmist message might be distorted (the California legislature Schwarzenegger deals with is much more liberal than Congress) and wrong (Schwarzenegger's centrist health initiative, aside from the illegal immigrant part, seems worthy). But that doesn't mean Republican primary voters won't be alarmed. ... [Thanks to alert reader S.A.K.]

Page C5: The NYTsells moneymaking TV stations to refocus on "synergies" between its struggling newspapers and "digitial businesses." .... "Synergies." Where' did I hear that word recently, in a media context? ... Now I remember. ... P.S.: Stock down 14%. Sell off of profitable assets. We're only just beginning to glimpse Pinch's visionary plan for victory! ... 8:22 P.M.

Naked cars: We read Autoblog for the pictures. The writing is hackwork--even worse than Road and Track, which is saying something. Today, Autoblog sneers at the new Ford Focus, without bothering to explain why it "falls short." ... Maybe they're upset that it's built on the old Focus chassis and not the newer "C1" platform used in Europe and shared with Mazda. But the tinny old American Ford Focus ZX3 hatch is fun to drive. The C1-based Mazda 3 isn't, at least at normal speeds (I think because so much of the design's weight is way up at the front). ... 7:22 P.M.

Are photo editors just choosing different shots, or has Nancy Pelosi changed her appearance? I can't figure it out. In this picture for example, she seems almost unrecognizable, based on the photos I've seen previously. But some old photos of her look similar. ... 4:40 P.M.

abiding paradox of contemporary Iraq that the Mahdi Army and the Sunni Arab guerrillas are slaughtering each other daily, but that young Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr (the leader of the Mahdi Army) has a better political relationship with Sunni Arab MPs and leaders than any other Shiite. [E.A.] **

Cole's post is concise--I won't try to condense it further here. It would seem to have some possible pessimistic implications (are we backing the wrong Shiite in trying to form a "moderate" coalition between Sadr's rival, al-Hakim of SCIRI, and Sunni MPs?) and some possible positive implications, the main one being this: If the Sadrist Shiites and the non-Sadaamist Sunnis can cut some sort of stable deal, then maybe we can withdraw from Iraq without triggering a Shiite vs. Sunni bloodbath. Cole addresses this possibility as well. ...

A WSJ-Harris "interactive" poll purports to measure public support for various "issues that might be on the agenda of the new Congress." Here is how one of those "issues" is described:

Immigration reform to make it more difficult for immigrants to enter the U.S. and to stay in the U.S. for a prolonged length of time.

Huh? Which legislation, exactly, is this describing? (a) A proposal the Pelosi/Reid Democrats are actually planning to push? (Does it include legalization of many illegal immigrants already "in the U.S. for a prolonged length of time," thereby allowing them to stay a much longer time?)Or (b) the old enforcement-only Sensenbrenner bill? Sounds more like (b). ... The tough-sounding plan got 76% approval. ... 3:29 A.M.

intended to forestall an alliance of the Sadrists with Sunni Arab parties, which would have the effect of dividing the Shiites. [E.A.]

I obviously don't understand Iraq: Aren't the Sadrist militias the ones ethnically cleansing Baghdad by killing Sunnis? (I know Sadr has tried to make alliances with Sunnis in the past, but you'd think it would be beyond that point now, especially after the Sadrist mocking of Saddam on the gallows.) Update: See Juan Cole's explanation. ... 2:44 A.M.

Mystery Pollster answers the call,delves deep into the competing methodologies of those crazily conflicting Iowa polls and discovers ... that the methodologies are pretty much the same. Which leaves him stumped along with everyone else, except for the possibility that "voters are not yet engaged in the race enough to have strong allegiances." ... kf's nominee for likeliest possible explanation (informed by an email from Iowa reader G.M.): There's a big difference between 1) asking voters if they "definitely plan" to go to the caucuses, and 2) asking voters if they actually participated in the 2004 caucuses. Lots of people say they "plan" to attend. That's normal! But those who have attended are the sort of pathetically unrepresentative hard core activi ...sorry, committed citizens who make up the tiny sliver (6%) of Iowa voters who actually show up and choose the winner. ... In this case, the merely aspirational caucusgoers pick Clinton, while the hard core goes for Obama--a result consistent with the idea that Obama is capturing those who think a lot about politics, while those who don't think as much about politics haven't yet been hit by the wave. ... P.S.: The Dem hard core would also be more anti-war, and thus anti-Clinton. ...P.P.S.: And the same strategic 'electability' worries that led the hard core geniuses to light on John Kerry in 2004 might cause them to reject Hillary now. ...

Update:MP says the theory is "plausible" and notes that more numbers from the competing pollsters--showing how many people their filters filtered out--might resolve the issue. 8:27 P.M.

Soft hothouse quirkiness pays off in Eat the Press'2006 HonorableMentions--much more fun than ETP's actual, predictable (except for Hodgman) Winners. ... P.S.: "What did you do this year?" is not a question we like to ask around here, though. ... 7:21 P.M.

Arguments that Only Work in a Cocoon Dept.: Another sneering op-ed arguing the Mexican border fence has an "effectiveness" problem because in San Diego, when 14 miles were built, people stopped crossing there! They went elsewhere to cross!

A little-noticed Congressional Research Service report issued Dec. 12 indicates that expanding the California wall makes little sense. After the San Diego wall went up, apprehensions in the area were reduced, the CRS reports. But "there is ample evidence that flow of illegal immigration ... shifted to more remote areas of the Arizona desert."

See? It won't work because where it's been tried it worked. Q.E.D. ... 6:53 P.M.

But efforts by two governments, several news organizations, and bloggers have failed to produce such evidence or proof that there is a Captain Jamil Hussein. The AP cannot or will not produce him or convincing evidence of his existence.

It is striking that no one has been able to find a family member, friend, or colleague of Captain Hussein. Nor has the AP told us who in the AP's ranks has actually spoken with Captain Hussein. Nor has the AP quoted Captain Hussein once since the story of the disputed episode.

Therefore, in the absence of clear and compelling evidence to corroborate the AP's exclusive story and Captain Hussein's existence, we must conclude for now that the AP's reporting in this case was flawed.

To make matters worse, Captain Jamil Hussein was a key named source in more than 60 AP stories on at least 25 supposed violent incidents over eight months. [E.A.]

The Shia politicians I met when in Baghdad, even the most urbane and educated, seemed dead set against sharing power in any real sense. In an interview with Reuters last week, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki also said he believed that if Iraqi troops were left to their own devices, they could establish order in six months in Iraq. It is not difficult to imagine what he means: Shia would crush Sunni, and that would be that. This notion—that military force, rather than political accommodation, could defeat the insurgency—is widely shared among senior Shia leaders. Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the head of the single largest political party in Parliament, has made similar statements in the past.

Hakim, of course, is one of the Sadr rivals we are courting to join the "front of the moderates." ... 1:59 A.M. link

AnARG poll of "likely Democratic caucus goers living in Iowa" has Hillary Clinton beating Obama 31 to 10%. But a Research 2000 poll taken at almost the same time showed Obama beating Clinton 22 to 10%. I find it difficult to believe these apparent wildly discordant results can be explained by ARG's possible use of a tighter 'likely caucus goer' filter. Pollster.com 's commenters are perplexed too. ... Looks like a job for Mystery Pollster. ... P.S.--Alternative Resolution: Who cares what Iowa caucus goers think? They're the idiots who picked Kerry last time! [You're not allowed to say that about America's historic first-in-the-nation caucuses--ed Sorry. Momentary slip-up. Will care intensely about Iowa from now on.] ... Note: Hillary had a "non-trivial" decline in national polls over 2006 that began "before 'Obama-mania' took hold in late fall," according to Prof. Franklin. ... P.P.S.: What are the chances that Hillary pollster Mark Penn's numbers will show her in a bad light and convince her not to run? Wouldn't Penn be missing out on a lot of remunerative work plus celebrity and excitement if she bails out? Just asking! ... 11:52 P.M. link

Sen. Tim Johnson is still under sedation, and AP's report contains this alarming quote (missing from the version now posted on WaPo):

Dr.Keith Siller, director of the Comprehensive Stroke Care Center at NYU Medical Center and assistant professor at the NYU School of Medicine, said it is unusual for a patient to be sedated after brain surgery for more than a few days.

"The two-week period is longer than I would be happy with," he said.

Siller is not the doctor on the scene, of course. Congressional Quarterly has some more encouraging stats [via IP]. ... He said it:Only Slate 's Tim Noah, however, has had the balls to prematurely speculate about a partisan Schiavo do-si-do in which Tom DeLay suddenly realizes that 'quality of life' is what counts, while Democrats discover that maybe the Schiavo conservatives had a point. ... Backfill: See also Ace of Spades:("Johnson's minor interaction with the world is enough to keep him in the Senate, but wasn't enough to keep Terry Schiavo alive. ... Democrats seem to have newfound respect for an occasional opening of the eyes.")2:35 P.M.

[M]ost Planoites are not ...[snip] "wildly exercised about sodomy." These solidly conservative, mostly Christian families are not about to launch a pogrom against their gay neighbors. "I have yet to know somebody on finding out that an educator or volunteer was gay in to say, 'Oh, gosh, I can't have them working with my child,'" Kelly Hunter says. "I have known them to say that about the mom who drinks before she goes some place." By the standards of twenty years ago, and certainly by those of Peoria, Planoites are positively accepting.

[snip]

Plano residents aren't "wildly exercised about sodomy," notes a gay friend who last year moved from Dallas to Los Angeles, "but most anti-gay people aren't. They are wildly concerned with making sure their kids never hear the word 'sodomy'; never ask, 'Mommy, what's a drag queen?'; and never have to deal with anything even remotely related to sex. ...[snip]"

He exaggerates, of course. But Plano parents want to determine when and where they talk to their kids about sex, and they assume that explaining that some men fall in love with other men is "about sex."

"We don't have control over a whole lot in the world, but hopefully the education of our children is part of it," Hunter says.

Even in a highly Republican town like Plano, in other words, the religious objection to gay marriage isn't the crucial objection. Fear that moral entropy will envelop your family's children is the crucial objection. I don't see how that fear is addressed theologically. I would think it has to be addressed practically, over time, by repeat demonstration . But time is one thing a rights-oriented, judicial route to gay marriage doesn't allow. ... 1:13 A.M. link

Influence Peddler seesten House seats moving into Republican areas (from the Democratic Northeast, and from Iowa) after the 2010 census--for a potential net change of 20.** ... Doesn't that assume: a) the districts added in Texas, Florida, Arizona, Nevada, Georgia and Utah will invariably be Republican (your bailiwick, Barone); and b) "Republican" will mean the same thing in 2012 that it means today. ... Update: IP says he's talking about 10 new reliably Republican electoral votes for presidential purposes, not necessarily 10 Republican House seats. ...

1) "Comprehensive" reform is supposed to be a deal in which amnesty for current illegals (and a guest worker program) is coupled with a tougher workplace enforcement program to block future illegals. Sounds good, but the last such "comprehensive" reform--the1986 amnesty--failed miserably when its workplace enforcement program turned out to be ineffective at stopping employers from hiring illegals. The idea behind the current Bush proposal is that this time workplace enforcement will work. But, as the New York Times notes, Swift & Co. in fact particpated in the

the federal Basic Pilot program, a system of checking Social Security numbers that President Bush has touted as a way to crack down on immigration fraud.

How does it increase our faith in "comprehensive" reform if the sort of "reliable verification system" that President Bush himself touts failed conspicuously to stop so many illegals from getting jobs at Swift that they made up 10% of the company's work force?

2) Jacoby praises Swift for "trying to comply" with workplace enforcement laws. If this is the result that's achieved by a firm "trying to comply," how awful will the results in the future be with firms that are maybe not trying so hard to comply?

3) Jacoby notes that when Swift & Company "tried inquiring" more deeply into the backgrounds of job applicants, it was "sued for discrimination by the Justice Department." Couldn't President Bush--if he cares so much about workplace enforcement--have told the Justice Department to cut it out? If a conservative Republican president won't rule out crying "discrimination" when immigration laws are applied, why do we think a liberal Democratic administration will? And even if the government doesn't sue to block effective inquiries into illegal status, won't the ACLU and other "civil rights" groups? The ACLU just sued a Dallas suburb that passed a law against renting to illegals. Hispanic activists, including big groups like the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) protested the Swift raids themselves.

"This unfortunately reminds me of when Hitler began rounding up the Jews for no reason and locking them up," Democratic Party activist Carla Vela said. "Now they're coming for the Latinos, who will they come for next?" [E.A.] **

Hmm. If enforcing immigration laws at the workplace before the passage of "comprehensive" immigration reform reminds Hispanic activists of Hitler, won't enforcing immigration laws at the workplace after the passage of comprehensive reform still remind them of Hitler?*** In both cases it will presumably be mostly Hispanic illegal immigrants who are caught in the net. Jacoby allows that the Swift raids "could be justified in the context of an immigration overhaul of the kind proposed by the president." But the reaction of Hispanic activists suggests they will continue to fight in the courts and legislatures to make sure that the enforcement mechanisms on which the immigration bill relies are as ineffective as possible.

None of this makes Bush's proposed amnesty-for-enforcement deal more credible. It makes it seem likelier that, as in 1986, the amnesty part will work but the enforcement part won't. Which may or may not be the real idea behind "comprehensive" reform.

P.S.: After the raids, the line of applicants at the Swift & Co. office in Colorado for the now-vacant jobs--jobs that, according to Jacoby, legal immigrants and Americans won't do-- stretched out the door.

P.P.S.: Kausfiles--Solution-Oriented! Why doesn't Congress simply pass a moderate increase in the unskilled legal immigrant quota from Mexico (and other Latin American countries) while an effective enforcement system**** is devised and tested. No amnesty, no guest-worker program. Then, once we know we have an enforcement scheme that actually works--and won't be crippled by lawsuits--Congress could revisit a "comprehensive" legislation that includes amnesty.

**--How come she gets to violate the Hitler Rule with impunity? No fair. ...

1) Has Obama grappled seriously and smartly with the big questions of the day; and

2) Has he, in the course of this grappling, told Dems something they don't want to hear, or demonstrated independence from Dem interest groups that enforce the party's line in unfortunate ways (e.g., teachers' unions impeding education reform, seniors unwilling to accept any Social Security cuts, populists who pretend bargaining-down drug prices will largely solve the problem of health-care costs, etc.).

You'd hope that even Dems who don't agree with the DLC-ish sentiments behind #2 would insist on #1. But, yes, Obama could do #1 without #2.

Has he done that? A few weeks ago, Obsidian Wingscatalogued Obama's "wonky" efforts.** He's against loose nukes, avian flu and unregulated genetic testing! That's impressive, but follows a standard good-Senator's path of picking off a chewable, discrete problem and pushing a rifle-shot, programmatic solution (typically involving creation of a small new federal office to control nukes, prepare for avian flu, or establish gene-testing standards, etc.). It's not the same thing as confronting deeper, bigger, less easily addressed problems: How to structure the health care system, how to pay for entitlements, how to confront the terror threat, the rise of China, the problems of trade and immigration, the increase in income inequality at the top.

Josh Gerstein of the N.Y. Sunmakes a better case: Obama listens to Samantha Power and Susan Rice on human rights, Gerstein reports. He wants to talk to Iran, he discounts the Chinese military threat but surprisingly, for an early Iraq war opponent, he has said he'd favor "launching some missile strikes into Iran" if that was the only way to stop "having a radical Muslim theocracy in possession of nuclear weapons." (Does Iowa know this?) He's unpredictable as well on trade. What's less clear is whether that unpredictability reflects a developed world-view or ad-hockery that's fine in a Senator but in a president, not so much.

More talk on these issues, please. And no fair "transcending" them!

Unpredictablity of any sort is a plus when it comes to #2, of course. But so far Obama isn't close to meeting the Joe Klein Piss-Someone-Off Test, despite the efforts of his press boosters to claim he has. Tom Maguire points toa comical attempt by the New York Times, where a mini-profile by Jefff Zeleny declared:

He has demonstrated an occasional willingness to break from liberal orthodoxy, including his vote to confirm Condoleezza Rice as secretary of state, which at the time infuriated liberals (13 Democrats opposed her).

Just like in Iowa, Hillary loses to Rudy and McCain but beats Romney. And just like in Iowa, Obama beats them all. Edwards doesn't run as strong in New Hampshire as in Iowa - no surprise there - but he still manages a dead heat against McCain and Giuliani and handily beats Romney. So even though Hillary is clinging to a lead at the top of the field, she's once again giving off the "unelectable" vibe in comparison to her two most serious primary challengers. [E.A.]

P.S.: In light of these poll results, doesn't Dick Morris' theory--that if Obama now doesn't run he'll have done Hillary a favor by clearing the field--have a couple of holes: 1) Obama hasn't cleared Edwards out; and 2) If Obama decides not to run early next year, and Hillary's still this weak, there will be plenty of time for new challengers to jump in. ... P.P.S.: Why does Massachusetts' governor Mitt Romney do so poorly in 'neighboring New Hampshire'? 12:32 P.M. link

The question now is does Obama have any hope of raising money? I don't think he'll raise it out of the New York people, I don't think he's going to raise it out the Hollywood people, so where's the money going to come from for Barack Obama? [E.A.]

That's right, a charismatic black Iraq war opponent has no appeal out here! As always, the entertainment community demands more policy details! ... P.S.: Hello? Juan? You're making Lawrence O'Donnell look like Edgar Cayce! "Hollywood people" will obviously swoon for Obama at least as easily as any other Democratic constituency. ... P.P.S.: Remember when Joe Lieberman was briefly said to be through, after his primary loss, because he wasn't going to be able to raise money? 12:53 A.M. link

kf's First Law of Journalism, Rigorously Applied: If, as Lawrence Kudlow claims, "the Fed has vanquished inflation," why do all the fancy restaurants that used to cost $75 for two now routinely top $100? When the rich-who-are-getting-richer bid up prices, doesn't that count? Just asking. ... P.S.: The food I've gotten for $100 seemed to taste better than the old $75 food. Maybe the statisticians take that into account. ... Update: Alert reader G.J. suggests fancy restaurants are simply victims of Baumol's Disease--they're a labor intensive business that's seen few gains in productivity. But in the rest of the economy productivity improvements could still be driving down prices. Good point. ... 12:15 A.M. link

Clintonoia Breakdown: Isn't Samuel "Sandy" Berger's explanation for why he snuck classified documents out of the National Archives entirely plausible? Haven't you ever been in a library, reading non-circulating material in an uncomfortable chair under harsh lighting--all the while thinking you could just make sense of it if you could take it home and review it in more familiar surroundings? I faced this dilemma quite frequently at college and law school, and on more than one occasion my reaction was to stuff the papers in my backpack and smuggle them back to my dorm.** You never did that? ...

Sure, the Inspector General's report on Berger's misconduct--obtained and released by Pajamas Media--raises lots of potential questions, some of which are listed by the Pajamas editors here and the Powerliners here. And I yield to noone when it comes to paranoia about possible extralegal skullduggery in the Clinton administration! Well, I yield to only a few. (My bona fides.) It could be Berger was trying to destroy all copies of an early 2000 email that said "Al Qaeda, al Schmaeda. What could they ever do to us?" But if you read through the IG report in a non-paranoid mood and look for facts that are at odds with Berger's plausible 'I-wanted-to-sort-out-this-stuff-at-home explanation,' you won't find much.

I did notice one jarring fact: When Berger is given a second copy of an email he's already taken home--#217--he takes that copy home too. That makes it look like he wanted to remove all copies of #217. But it's also consistent with the familiar last-minute-crammer's habit of wanting to make sure you've scooped up every little bit of material to study during the impending all-nighter. As long as you're stealing stuff, you might as well be comprehensive. Maybe Berger (as he apparently claims) wasn't certain the two copies of #217 were identical.

Meanwhile, in Berger's defense, we learn from the report that he read the documents in an office with an archives employee who was doing his own work, and whom Berger was reluctant to bother. Sounds like exactly the sort of arrangement that would stop me from getting any productive thinking done. Bad Feng Shui! Couple that with a) the requirement that Berger couldn't even remove his own notes from this room and b) Berger's almost certain knowledge that many of the documents subject to these maddening regulations probably shouldn't really be classified in the first place, and you might easily conclude that the IG report does more to back up than to cast doubt on Berger's non-sinister explanation.

**--Admittedly, I didn't then cut them up and put them in the trash. But then, unlike Berger, I wasn't caught before I returned them. 10:51 P.M. link

D____ Cab for Cutie: The car that most impressed me, during my recent Gearbox phase, was the Scion Xb, which only recently went out of production. Perfectly-sized for the city, inexpensive, reliable, handles well, holds a lot, leaves a light footprint on the planet. But jeez, before you buy one, take a look at this picture. Grim! [via Autoblog] 5:33 P.M. link

Thanks, Iowa? Hillary's big Iowa problem. She's running a strong fourth with 10%! ... P.S.: She can't blame lack of "name recognition." [Time for the contest to write her withdrawal speech?--ed We wouldn't want somebody else to steal that gimmick! But there's one way to guarantee that she won't need a withdrawal speech--if she decides not to risk a run that might end in humiliating primary defeat. She doesn't seem like the type who'd handle that well.] ... Caveat: Hillary can always note that Iowa Democratic voters are proven fools. ... 3:28 P.M.

My Obama Problem: After reading up a bit on Barack Obama for a temporarily-aborted bloggingheads segment, my tentative working thesis is this: He's too damn reflective! And introspective. ... Maybe it's the writers, or the questions they ask, or the audience they think they're writing for, but all the drama in the stories about Obama comes from his "emotional wrestling match with his background," his overcoming of his "angry sense of racial displacement," his wrenching assessments and reassessments of how to live in "a world that is broken apart by class and race and nationality," etc.

One of those reassessments, according to Obama, came when a friend told him "you always think everything's about you." And he doesn't any more? Obama's favorite complexity still seems to be Obama--it was certainly a subtext of his 2004 convention address. ("We worship an awesome God in the blue states"). At the end of his early Obama profile, my boss Jacob Weisberg says Obama "would never be so immodest" as to compare himself to Lincoln. But a dozen paragraphs earlier, Obama had done just that:

"That kind of hunger—desperate to win, please, succeed, dominate—I don't know any politician who doesn't have some of that reptilian side to him. But that's not the dominant part of me. On the other hand, I don't know that it was the dominant part of—" his voice suddenly trails off as he motions behind him to a portrait of Lincoln, the self-invented lawyer, writer, and politician from Illinois. "This guy was pretty reflective," he says, offering a sly smile.

I'm a "character" voter, not an "issues" voter. But the way you reveal your character is by grappling with issues, not by grappling with yourself. Anguish is easy. Isn't it time for Obama to start being ostentatiously reflective about policies? That's what you want from a Harvard Law Review type.

And on the issues, what's Obama done that's original or pathbreaking? I don't know the answer. But compare his big speech on immigration reform with failed Dem Senate candidate Brad Carson's article on immigration reform. Carson says things Democrats (and Republicans) haven't been saying; Obama's speech offers an idiosyncratic veneer of reasonableness over a policy that is utterly party line and conventional, defended with arguments that are party line and conventional.

OK, that's just one example. Maybe I'm an old-fashioned Joe Kleinish Clintonian self-hating Dem. But I'm not swooning until I hear Obama to tell Democrats something they maybe don't want to hear. Did I miss it? 12:21 A.M. link

Shane MacGowan of the Pogues on Kirsty MacColl, who was killed six years ago yesterday, and their song Fairytale of New York, which won a 2004 poll for best Christmas song. [via Gawker] ... My nominee for best Christmas song is something I've only heard once, The Wedding Present's ecstatically noisy version of "Step Into Christmas." ... P.S.: OK, I've now heard it twice. (It's here.) I stand by my position. ... 8:52 P.M.

"I am not in favor of doing that unless it's part of a larger plan," Clinton said. "I am not in favor of sending more troops to continue what our men and women have been told to do with the government of Iraq pulling the rug out from under them when they actually go after some of the bad guys." [E.A.]

Note to WCBS: This does not support the headline "Clinton Opposes U.S. Troop Surge In Iraq." It supports the headline "Clinton Fudges on U.S. Troop Surge in Iraq." On balance, I'd even say it's more supportive than not--any troop surge will clearly be presented as part of a "larger plan," after all. Clinton didn't even say, as Sen. Harry Reid did, that the "plan" has to include "a program to get us out of there ... by this time next year." .... 11:46 P.M.

"Are social conservatives stuck with a pro-golden shower candidate?" Ryan Lizza goes into the hilarious details of Mitt Romney's not-so-long-ago tolerance of Bay State gay activism. ... What's shaping up, Lizza notes, is a battle between cynical inside-the-Beltway conservative pros who are willing to overlook Romney's "pro-gay, pro-abortion record" because "they need an anti-McCain," and actual outside-the-Beltway social conservative voters who might be horrified by state-sponsored fisting seminars and "Transgender Proms." ... P.S.: Instead of trying to persuade social conservatives he's been secretly battling for them all along, wouldn't Romney be better off playing the conversion card? 'Nobody knows the evil of golden showers better than someone who ...,' etc., etc.. I would think it would pack a convincing frisson. ... 11:13 A.M.

Warner rethink: OK, that's enough time with my children! ... And if the need for family time is not the big reason why Mark Warner dropped out, as rumor says it wasn't, what made him change his mind? ... Seems like there must be a story here, though maybe not the kind of story that ever comes out (except in novels). ... [viaHuffPo via Goddard ] 9:53 P.M.

The fact is that if provincial elections were held today, the Sadr Movement would sweep to power in all the Shiite provinces (with the possible exception of Najaf itself). It is increasingly the most popular political party among Iraq's Shiite majority. For the US to cut the Sadrists out of power in parliament and then fall on them militarily would just throw Iraq into turmoil. It would increase the popularity of the Sadrists, and ensure that they gain nationalist credentials that will ensconce them for perhaps decades.. ...

Malkin and Alterman--Together Again: Lt. Col. Bateman's post on Media Matters ' Altercation--disputing Associated Press in the ongoing controversy over the alleged burning of six Sunnis in Baghdad--seems quite damning. Eric Boehlert's response--'Hey, I'm not defending the AP on this, just attacking the AP's attackers!'--seems quite weak. And Boehlert, while blasting "unhinged" warbloggers, comes unhinged himself, I think, when in his original, near interminable article he writes:

I don't think it's out of bounds to suggest that warbloggers want journalists to venture into exceedingly dangerous sections of Iraq because warbloggers want journalists to get killed.

Di Bug Bust:Thatofficial police report on Diana's death appears to be a bust, as far as alleging spying by the Clinton Administration on Republican magnate Ted Forstmann. Byron York:

[T]he Lord Stevens report contains no mention of Forstmann and no description of anyone like him, nor does it have any evidence that anything like the Forstmann scenario took place. [E.A.]

But the U.S. may have caught Diana talking about hairstyles with her friend Lucia Flecha de Lima! (The report speculates they would have been overheard because we were eavesdropping on the Brazilian embassy in D.C.). ...

P.S.--Keeping Hope Alive: I should also note, at the risk of sounding like a raving conspiracist, that the Stevens report doesn't seem to say anything that would rule out a U.S. a bugging of Forstmann that turned up conversations with or about Diana**--though to be consistent with the NSA's account they would have to be "only short references to Princess Diana in contexts unrelated to the allegations" about her death being the result of a conspiracy. It's just that the Stevens report was what was supposed to substantiate the Forstmann angle, and it doesn't. It's not like there is a lot of other evidence for the Forstmann-bug scenario--unless the credibility-challenged Brit papers can produce some. ...

Still! Diana's apparently famous July 14, 1997 statement to the press--

"You're going to get a big surprise, you'll see, you're going to get a big surprise with the next thing I do"

[NSA official Louis] Giles said the NSA would not share the documents with investigators on grounds their disclosure could reveal secret intelligence sources and methods. Nor did Giles reveal whose conversations were being targeted by the NSA.

Is it possible those British press reports are completely wrong about the bugging of Ted Forstmann and Diana? (See below.) Thursday's publication of the official Scotland Yard report on Diana's death should be near-definitive on the issue, since the Brit papers are supposedly merely offering leaks from that report. But, according to today's New York Daily News, Forstmann thought he was bugged:

A source close to Forstmann told the Daily News yesterday that Diana may have been overheard while traveling with Forstmann on his private plane, which Forstmann believed was bugged by the feds to listen in on his rich and powerful friends. [E.A.]

Note that the Washington Post's Source Close to Forstmann--who seems to know things only Forstmann himself would know--only says that "he had heard rumors that someone had planted listening devices in his plane to listen to the princess," not to listen generally to Forstmann's rich and powerful friends. Of course, targetting the princess is exactly what the Feds are busy denying. Which leaves open ... [via Drudge] 12:44 P.M.